Redwolf's Journal (continued)

  Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries is... a Mechwarrior game, and I hadn't played one of those in a long time. It gets most things right, but it doesn't strike me as highly revolutionary or a great improvement over older entries to the series beyond natural graphic updates. The strategic layer covers handling of finances for a mercenary lance - pay and salvage versus repair, travel, salaries, and upgrades. Travel time is, I guess, "realistic" within the setting, though I find it a bit disturbing to watch months roll by for a major refit or travel more than a couple systems away on the map. And my quest for revenge (the main story) took something like twenty years. Mech modification and design is restricted by the newer (in relative terms) hard point limits beyond just tonnage and space, which can make acquiring certain variants of mech models important. The tactical play of the missions is fairly routine, though gets mixed up enough that I didn't really feel bored by it

I started off the day busting my ass working on things that came up yesterday during a training session in our new system as incomplete or needing adjustment. I made pretty good time with it through the morning, really, and I'm proud of it. Then, while walking at lunch, I observed an odd feeling of somehow being on the verge of something. It was like some epiphany was just beyond reach, waiting to be grabbed. I was reminded of a period of my life when I was not so jaded and actually so in love that everything felt more vivid and alive. This wasn't that, but it was still unusual, remarkable, and positive. This afternoon, our CFO is filling me in on some personnel changes. This mostly revolved around people who are leaving, but one is coming in soon. She then offers the good news that I'm getting a raise as of next week. 15% doesn't radically change life, but it's not trivial either and when any raise at all has been virtually mythological in the company the last seve

 Maaaan, I kinda hate politics, even at small levels. Yesterday was our yearly HOA meeting and a new couple that has just recently bought and moved in has changed the dynamics of things with some definite butting of heads. A few years ago one family sort of de facto "took over" the board by virtue of being motivated. In general, I don't disagree with them, so I'm not saying that's a bad thing. The complex is definitely in better shape in many ways than it has been and our finances are not constantly scraping the bottom of the barrel as they were for a decade after I moved in. So this is good. The down side I see is the president of the last few years can be a little... authoritarian. As I agree with her decisions most of the time, that isn't really a problem, but I do genuinely wish she had a lighter touch. The new couple moved in and immediately made a request to fence/cage off their back patio area for benefit of a cat they didn't want wandering potentia